Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Anti Asshat Week Continues: The Paladin

One idea about reducing the number of asshats

Can I tell you a story? So there was this guy who was kind
of new at playing WoW, but was a decent paladin. He was running dungeons using
Dungeon Finder and happened to get grouped up with someone from his own server.
He chatted with the hunter, exchanged a few jokes and when the dungeon was
finished they queued up for another one. Over the next week or so, they ran a
few more dungeons together. The hunter was an officer in her guild and thought
the paladin was pretty cool, so she asked him to join. He accepted and was
greeted warmly into his new family, having no idea that his first act within
the new guild was to break the biggest rule: Nobody under 21 years old.

The way I started interacting with the paladin is that he
rolled a shaman and gave it a ridiculous name. It wasn’t offensive, but it was
dumb. Being the lovely person that I am, I immediately tore into him. I made
fun of him relentlessly. I made up a nickname and insisted the guildies played
along. He responded by creating four of five other toons with related names,
just to get on my nerves. Oh, we were instant friends. I ran him through
dungeons on his alts, he sent me way too many profession mats, and we did
heroic instances together. I became a better player because he would use his
entire arsenal of spells and remind me that I could as well. I would chat to
him on vent, but he would respond by typing because he said he didn’t have a
microphone.

He loved his alts. When he got them to max level, he would
try out each spec. It drove me crazy when he would queue up as an ele shaman
when half his gear was for enhance. When I was nervous about trying out
healing, he would say “just do it” and force me into a dungeon. He constantly
spammed me with duels, which I hated because he beat me every single time. It
seemed that the way he learned new specs was to stand outside of Goldshire, get
his butt whooped and then ask “What spell did you use there?”

Then it occurred to me: Playing a zillion specs with reckless
abandon and obvious joy, silly names, won’t speak on vent, Goldshire… OMG this
guy is a kid!

I asked him, he confirmed. He hadn’t lied to anyone, but
nobody had asked. He liked the guild and thought it was a good idea to keep his
age to himself. I agreed. Even though other members liked him, and he had
proven himself to be nice, funny, generous and quite useful… I still thought
there was the tiniest possibility that he might be asked to leave if it became
common knowledge that he was in high school.

I tell this story because I think we are shooting ourselves
in the foot by cutting the younger generation out of our circles. When we see
players using unsavory language or acting like idiots, we assume they are kids.
That might actually be a fair assumption, but most people are good at heart, and
that includes teenagers. A lot of those players end up in a guild that will
take just about anyone and are exposed to a culture that would curl your toes.
It would be easy to fall into a habit of idiocy when you think that’s just how
the game is supposed to be.

Adults can’t lead by example from an ivory tower with
thorned gates. Allowing a few younger players within the ranks could dissipate
the potential audience of the asshats who attempt to ruin our hobby. Another
way to look at it is that we could stop denying ourselves the opportunity to
work with new players with fresh perspectives. I don’t think the paladin is an
anomaly. There are more of him out there and I hope we can give them a chance.

These days the paladin is more of a shaman… or a druid… or a
priest. He did eventually come clean to the GM about his age because he had hoped to be
part of the raid team. She acted annoyed, but was fine. He had proved himself
to be an awesome person over and over again and was not a
candidate for a gkick. The only time anyone treats him differently is when I
ask, “Why are you playing video games and not out talking to girls?” I still
call him names, but one thing I don’t call him is a “kid."

2 comments:

It is true that not all asshats are kids, and that kids can be decent people. We shouldn't generalise and this story goes to show that young people can be decent people, and we should encourage them to continue being decent people. Kicking him for his age, even if he had done nothing may have turned him into an asshat, or made him feel that he should act like others who typify that age group - be rude and belligerent and childish. If we find good behaviour we should encourage it. I am sure the adult only theme for the guild was to make sure there was no childish behaviour, not because they thought all kids are childish.

Certainly in my experience the vast majority of jerks have been over 25. Most of the loot drama for example came from people on the less childish side of 30. I've always preferred the recruiting based on personality, fit and goals rather than applying sweeping rules. There are just as many childish adults as there are childish kids and excluding entire groups from guilds because of stereotyping means you potentially miss out on recruiting great people.

I've just finished a course entitled "Managing diversity" at work and I think a lot of it's lessons can be applied to all aspects of life, WoW included. The bigger the pool in terms of breadth of experience, the better the team if they all pull together.